What Does "X" Represent In A Serial Number?

Can you help me with this? Not sure what it means? Which was more popular? Where is the Motto?

Thanks!!

 

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The motto is on the back of the bill above "ONE". The one with the motto is the higher value one.

Some history:

http://www.ustreas.gov/education/fact-sheets/currency/in-god-we-trust.shtml


"A law passed by the 84th Congress (P.L. 84-140) and approved by the President on July 30, 1956, the President approved a Joint Resolution of the 84th Congress, declaring IN GOD WE TRUST the national motto of the United States. IN GOD WE TRUST was first used on paper money in 1957, when it appeared on the one-dollar silver certificate. The first paper currency bearing the motto entered circulation on October 1, 1957. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) was converting to the dry intaglio printing process. During this conversion, it gradually included IN GOD WE TRUST in the back design of all classes and denominations of currency."

 

Right--that works for anything printed in 12-subject sheets, which is Series 1928 through most of 1935D, plus 1950 (with the exception of those Type 1 Nationals).

When the 18-subject sheets came along in the 1935D/1950A printings, everything changed; and later when the 32-subject sheets arrived with Series 1957, everything changed again. It's not nearly as simple any more, but if you really want to see all the math, you can check out this thread.

'Course, even that'll be obsolete as soon as the BEP starts printing 50-subject sheets. We just found out last week that the first of the new 50-subject COPE-PAK machines is slated to arrive in September, so we might actually see currency printed in the larger format by year's end. At the moment, we don't even know how the positions are going to be designated on those sheets, let alone how they'll relate to the serial numbers....

That's a bit odd, since none of the 1935F notes have the "In God We Trust" motto. It's only Series 1935G that comes both ways, with the no-motto version of that series being the more common.

To address the original question, the Silver Certificates were issues of the U.S. Treasury, not of the Federal Reserve System, so they weren't domiciled to particular Federal Reserve Banks. Thus the serial prefix letter didn't need to mean anything in particular; it just ranged through the whole alphabet (excepting O). So the X is just the letter in between W and Y, I'm afraid. On today's Federal Reserve Notes, the first letter has to be A through L, representing one of the twelve FRBs; but the suffix letter can still get up to X if a single series runs long enough (this has only happened in the 1988A $1's, 1995 $1's, and 1996 $100's).

 

The "set" is just two notes, one without the motto and one with the motto. One is the 1935 and the other is the 1957. Sorry to be so confusing.

 

What I find interesting about this note, is the Priest/Anderson signatures, being that it's a series 1935 F. I realize that the year printed on the note, isn't necessarily the year the note was printed, but we're talking 20-ish years, here. Seeing that Priest was appointed in 1953, and Anderson in 1957.

I would think that this note would have the Julian/Morgenthau signatures on it. So, what am I not quite understanding here? I'm still a newbie to the currency scene, so go easy.

 

<<Just curious if you know why they chose mod 6 to determine the check digit? I tend to use luhn algorithms because of their simplicity to check, I can't image many people can divide by 6 in their head...>>

I don't know if much thought went into it. The sheets were 12 subjects in the old days. I believe they were cut in half before numbering. THe top note of the first half sheet would be number 1 which would be chaeck letter A or G.

Now, surprise, everybody!
There was an X prefix for experimental notes. That was the X B block for series 1928 and 1928A silver certificates. Y B was also an experiment and Z B was the control. !0,728,000 X B notes were printed and are worth a premium today.

 

This wikipedia page has a list of the dates with signatures.

http://www.lincolncentresource.com/wideams.html

 

In the old days, they only changed the series year when there was an actual design change. If only the signatures changed, then the series year stayed the same, but the letter incremented.

So the original Series 1935 did go into production that year, and did have the Julian-Morgenthau signatures. But the design lasted through some thirty years and eight signature combinations, ending with the 1935H notes (Granahan-Dillon) printed in 1963.

By the way, the rules changed in 1974: Now, every new Secretary of the Treasury gets a new series year. So the only way to get a lettered series, like 2003A, is to have the Treasurer change while the Secretary remains in office. In practice, the Secretaries tend to turn over more than the Treasurers do, so lettered series aren't too common any more. If the rules *hadn't* changed, the Series 2009 $1's would be called Series 1969T!

Oh, and I think the previous poster has got the wrong link, so try this one instead....

 

Thank you, Numbers, for the explanation. I was operating under the assumption that the series years and letters, have always changed, when the signatures changed. I had no idea that the current way of doing things, was such a new policy (relatively speaking). Very interesting.